Just How Sweet is it to be a Sugar Skull for Halloween?

Halloween in college is no longer just a calorie-filled night, but a whole week. Everyone wants to be original, but relevant enough so their costume makes sense–not to mention everyone suddenly forgets its 40 degrees outside. With that in mind, my suite mates and I searched day and night for costume ideas that would set us apart but not give us pneumonia. We finally settled on ever-so-popular Sugar Skull faces. It sounded like a great idea three weeks ago.

Yesterday the day finally came for us to do our makeup. That same day my Spanish class talked about El Día de los Muertos. I am not sure about my suite mates, but I completely appreciate Mexican culture and I hope I did it justice. With that in mind, I sincerely apologize if Sugar Skulls are considered cultural appropriation. I admire global celebrations and the idea did not cross my mind when we decided on this costume (I found this blog post about it interesting).
My angel of a suite mate Aron picked up the Wet n Wild Queen of the Dead Stencil Kit to help us out, along with some white face paint. We did not take the time to practice before hand, like I originally thought we would.

I did not take any pictures of the process, but we all started with the white base. Thanks to some Pinterest inspiration and our own sheer laziness, we only did half of our faces. Being that I am so pale, I really had t layer on the paint to make it actual contrast my actual skin. I have very dry skin, but it still went on well. I did not anticipate the rough texture that the paint created on my face, but I still managed to avod a panic attack and get it on my face. That alone took more than half-an-hour.
I was already tired of doing my makeup by the time I got to the most important part of my face: the art. I would definitely recommend some practice on this one, but have fun with it! Luckily the Wet n’ Wild was easy to remove if I messed up and I got the idea from this video to use the sponge applicator from the kit to create the circle around my eye. It took a couple tried but we got there! My suite mates were quick while my roommate and I struggled to strive for impossible perfection. I would say only makeup artists, beauty gurus, and anyone more authentic can really perfect the sugar skill look. I am still happy with how it turned out, and I managed to not smudge it until after we took our pictures!

A quick review for the main product: I would give the Wet N Wild Kit a solid 5/10 because the eye liner was good, but the consistency of the colors was very gooey–almost like those cheap lip pallets that everyone had as a kid. If there ever is a next time, I would just buy some bring and dark eye shadows to contrast the looks better. It still managed to get the job done. All four of us were supposed to be different colors, but none of them really showed up well. I ended up using my Too Faced Natural Eye pallet for some better sparkle, so being innovative is key!

My beautiful room and suite mates

We saw a lot of other Sugar Skulls last night, most of which looked better than ours but oh well. I was happy and I had a pretty great night. It’s a fun costume if you do it well and for the right reasons.